- THIS IS A WORLD OF SWEETS AND SOURS

Why clearly the hoi oiligoi, or the few, wouldn't view postings on transexuality, or my personal religious preference in an open state of mind. Of course, resulting in somewhat disappointing circumstances.

  My postings, the mediocre brain child of over flowing words in my head on an issue suffered the tremor of attacks and the casualty, -the taking down of those previous blog entries. Resentment aside, I decided to stand my ground and repost them because as I already stated, everything I posted was based on personal opinions and judgement. My apologies, then, to acquaintances that may have been offended. I seek your ever- forgiving personal trait.

  This time around, the smell of pages of books have been filling my olfactory senses as I dug into reading during the mid year break. Well, not necessarily reading out of books, I did attempt, quite successfully, reading e-books. Sadly, it lacked lustre as I held the left click down on the mouse to 'flip to the next page' .

 From the author's website;  http://www.kristinhannah.com/content/index.php 

True Colors is about three sisters whose lives were shaped by the loss of their mother. Raised by a cold, distant, disapproving father, they banded together and became close. There’s Winona, who has spent a lifetime struggling with her weight and seeking her father’s approval, and Aurora, the middle sister, who just wants everyone to be happy, and Vivi Ann, the beautiful, romantic dreamer, for whom everything seems to come easily…her father’s love most of all. But when Vivi Ann makes a fateful decision to follow her heart, events are set in motion that will test the bonds of their sisterhood. It’s a story about how easily a family can be shattered, and how hard it can sometimes be to put the pieces back together, and how deceiving looks can be.

   Had I known Kristin Hannah's True Colors were a bit of a button-pusher, I would have seriously waited patiently for SPM to be over and done with. It was a good book. Different from those I usually read. Unlike modern stories about infatuation and such, this dealt with sisterly love and family struggles in the American country side. It tells of three sisters, the suffering. jealous lawyer older sister, Winona, the second; Aurora, the peacemaker and Vivi Ann, her husband Dallas and son, Noah , of whom the story revolves around. Reading this made me question my own actions and decision about my ambition. 

The Author, Kristin Hannah

  Criminal injustice in the story set in the early 1990's played a major role in causing heartbreak to a simple family that could have chosen a more adventurous, probably a more luxurious life. Evidence that were not looked into detail and the non-existence of modern DNA testing brought innocent people to jail and completely altered the lives of  Dallas's family. Being accused of murder and already having a felony file as a juvenile, certainly the fingers would have been pointed to him. 

 Eyewitnesses get their minds blurred and vision blocked by their mindset. Paul Craig Roberts, who co-wrote the book Tyranny Of Good Intentions stated that eyewitnesses are wrong half the time. This is enough to discredit it as evidence but yet, the jury and judges still bank on it.  How many men and women have suffered the failed judiciary system back then? Are these injustice happening even now, in a developed country such as US? Here, well here, is a different story altogether but how is it possible that a person can live through the fact that he or she is being put away for a crime they did not commit? If the sentence is lifted once an innocent man is proven so, I wonder, how would the jury that convicted the man possibly feel.    

True Colors really hooked into my emotions. I felt pain, joy and despair on the characters behalf. Definitely despair because I wept throughout almost the entire 3rd half of the book. I liked how every event was inter related, things that happened to one person affected the others and the series of unfortunate events continued to ripple over the years. 

Of course Dallas was released. He came out of prison a free man to a 16 year old son that he last saw at Christmas 14 years before and remarried Vivi Ann. The essence between all that? Maybe you should read this book if you're up for tears if you shed buckets watching Titanic or the last 15 minutes of Remember Me.

Oscar Wilde

  Oscar Wilde. Truly a beautiful man, one who has had the pleasure of living a life of grace and once fallen, humility fell unto this man and pain crept through him, He made feeling different, he made words come alive. In his long letter that he wrote to Lord Byron in prison, De Profundis, I found that he had written, "I am one of those who are made for exceptions, not laws," extremely accurate for his being in a 'twilight' cell. 

 

I had fallen deep into his world whenever I read Wilde. This began about the time I so wanted to complete reading The Picture of Dorian Gray that I became consumed, if not nearly obsessed with his literary ability. Wilde amazed me with the blatant truth in his words and today, I found his words, also written in De Profundis; - "..nobody great or small can be ruined except by his own hands," so true. Its a dreary feeling once you've come to terms with, but it is, probably the mark of the birth of maturity. - Or so I hope.]

I still haven't read The Picture Of Dorian Gray. It was the only novel published by Oscar Wilde.  The story of a young man so consumed with the power of the ability of staying youthful that he sells his soul while his insides, his portrait  fades away with his mind. The portrait of himself served as a reminder of the effect of sin, displaying the flaw and defect of himself, wasting away with age and pleasure-seeking judgements. 

 Thank you for your kind patronage and patience, dear readers, though still a minor, I fully appreciate that you took your time to read my humble attempt at writing. 

  Iris Isabelle Marie. 

FOR WHAT ITS WORTH, ITS BEING HUMANE THAT COUNTS.

We live in a world where everyone is constantly being judged based on our appearance. When it clothes and shoes you can change, what about your gender? Your sexual orientation? 

 A question hit me last week during my BM Kertas 1 paper. We were asked to write a sentence regarding the word 'sampah masyarakat' . What would I have thought about the word? Probably pretty much the same as everyone would. Drug addicts, transexuals, ...etc. I always thought these people deserved better treatment to be confident as a human being. 

 A transexual is a person whose gender identity does not match the sex that was assigned at birth. Some transexuals get medical treatment; by surgery or hormones, or both in order to bring their body back into alignment.

A chance to be themselves

  

  -Some don't. Some prefer it that way. People have to realize that there is no cure to this. They were born with cross-sex hormones. In Biology class, we came to know that this was a birth defect, occured by an error of the amount of hormones in the womb. During critical times of when the child's brain is forming, the cells receives a wrong gender signal which fails to produce an otherwise perfect baby. They are equal people only that they feel a consistent and overwhelming desire to fulfill their lives as members of the opposite gender. Some are extremely feminine while others opt to be as masculine as possible.

In recent years, transsexuals have been featured on television talk shows; especially those who manifested the physical traits of what most men consider to be beautiful.  They have been targeted by ultra-conservative hate groups as representing the essence of evil in our society.  The Internet is filled with information concerning them.  In Sunday’s Star 19^th June Insight column, Rouwen Lin quoted Cheryl Leong, founder of OutDo Malaysia, “Many people, especially those who are not out (being haven’t accepted their sexual orientation) , struggle with their sexuality. They often feel like they are the only lesbians in the world because they do not know of any others.”

Why did Bono decide to be so public about this most private of transformations? He says he didn’t have a choice. “I’ve learned that if you don’t tell your own story, someone else will, and they’ll do a bad job of it,”

Yet, regardless of the tremendous curiosity that they provoke, no single group of people inspire such strong reactions amongst the general heterosexual population. The point is that they are a reality, they are people, and they are in primary relationships with others who fully accept and love them.  To understand this, imagine that you are, just as you are right now, but that all of a sudden you have a body of the opposite sex. The whole world thinks you have always been this way, from birth.

Even so, you know who you really are.  Everybody treats you like how you look. You are not allowed to do most of the things you like, or that are normal to you. You are not treated the same, and when you try to be yourself, you get punished. When you try to act like how you look,  you find it is a lot more harder to do than you imagined, because it is not you, and you don't understand it. Worse, you know how your body should be built. You know what parts should be there and what parts should not. You know what it should feel like, but it does not. You have to go the 'wrong' bathroom, sit, stand  and do everything else 'wrong'. Everything is wrong and you might feel like a freak all the time. Your whole life will be one misery and disappointment after another. If you act like yourself, people will hate you, if you do act what you look like, you will hate yourself.  

 And all the time this is going on, your body just plain feels horrible. And it will be the society's fault on pressing this on them.  For calling them 'sampah masyarakat' when all they really are is human. 

Every human being deserves the right to live the way they want to.

   Do we, 'normal' people , give the right to judge and descriminate people who have no other choice than to live the way they do? Do we give them the 'look' when they walk past?  What runs through your head when they do? What would you do if you were in their shoes?

  

When humanity is the least of the human trait.



Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. ~ Buddha quotes 



I spent a simple birthday turning 17 last Tuesday, 5^th April, 2011. This year, it was all about friendship. I was being twice pleasantly surprised by the love that a little group of friends shared.



L-R :Me, Amalina, Kavitraa, Priscilla, Jia Xian, Jeremy

In this little covenant in my class, we’re all different. Every single one of us are interested in different things, we come from different ethnic backgrounds, we play different sports, we watch different shows. We’re so different, the only thing we have to our name that could actually unite all of us by similarity is our class and Subway;)  

Receiving a hand made card, with obviously alot of effort, it draws a smile every time take a glance at it as it sits in my room. Turning it over, with three sweet messages brings me to laughter. 

P.s: Thanks for the Loh Shi Fun, JeremyJ  Diyana and Tasneem, I love you both, too!

There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.

 ~ Pablo Picasso

That’s Twiggies with Moo ice-cream I had with Priscilla. May look like.. whatever it looks like.. But its delicious. Like, seriously.

  

 I had tuition the day on my birthday. I’m not complaining.  Spending the day in a familiar place you grow to love, being surrounded by the people who do care for each other is not being lucky. Its a blessing. Amazing feelings of ecstasy do hit you. And just when you least expect it, boy, do they really hit you.  I swear I was almost in tears when I got out of Physics class and everyone started singing Happy Birthday for me AND Marvin, one of the awesomest, kindest and most helpful person I’ve met. 

Celebrating your birthday together with a cherished person; definitely another blessing. 

Chocolate flavoured faces!

The sweet culprits; Syafiqah, Farhana and Amalina. I said it twice, I’ll say it again. I’ll never forget you three. Thank you for the huge, delicious Secret Recipe Chocolate Cake.

At Chillout with my family and Marvin. 7^th April, 2011

 

My mum was supposed to be in there but she really wasn’t ready for this shot and refused to have another one.

We celebrated our birthdays together this year considering we were born only a day apart. Fingers crossed for many more celebrations together ahead.

 



Words cannot express how thankful I am to have you all in my life. Being it all our final year in school, my birthday was meaningful, special and unforgettable.  Sure it wasn’t done in the most exclusive of places but I’m more than above the sky to have had it done this way. Give it a chance, I still wouldn’t have it in any other way because its the thought and effort that counts.

 



When love is lost, do not bow your head in sadness; instead keep your head up high and gaze into heaven for that is where your broken heart has been sent to heal.

It  never  is  easy...  Letting  go  of  the  one  you  loved  the  most  for  the  first  time,   at  an indecisive,   conflicting  age.   But  you’ll  always  have  a  soft  spot  for  him.   After  the  hurt  you’ve  caused  each  other,   the  fights,   the  yellings,   the  silent  treatments, the arguements with your parents for each other.  Too many things lurk in the back of your  mind, unable to comprehend who’s to be blamed. You’ll never forget that one. You simply move on. One day at a time. Because when it comes to an end, everyone has to face that  ghost.


After growing so used to each others presence, waking up every morning to see or send a good morning message, going to bed with that person being the last thing on your mind~ then it comes to a stop. All of sudden you feel like time is not moving forward. Like its come to a halt that when you see happy, positive things around you, you feel like people can be happy for only so long. You stop believing. You stop wishing. But you start hoping. But what are you actually hoping for?

Realize that things will never go your way forever. Whether you did the separation, or whether he did, there must have been a reason behind it that both cannot cope with for any longer. I always say that, when you get out of a relationship you treasured so dearly, you either make it or break it. It may be the most cliché thing that’s ever been said but when you are caught in the situation, you’re only left with those two paths.  I chose the path that I did.

Heavy heart or not, I did not want to let myself and the people around me down. I wanted out. I wanted change for the betterment of myself. And I wished him only the best. That he may be the person he wanted to be. That he may do the things he wanted to with complete freedom and happiness. And I very much hope he has accomplished that~for I first knew him to have been a person with potential. A diamond waiting to be polished and perfected to be priceless. A figure of independence and strength to face challenges in life that I may never have to deal with.

They say your first love is never your last. While in some cases it may be wrong, in mine, I  agree with it.   

It's the essence and con job of time.. It makes all the past seem better than it was and the future more bleak, when the opposite  is true. Go forward, only forward. Backing up always dissappoints. I have been ever so lucky to have had my mom stand by me throughout the way. Crying when I did and being there for me as I was about to fall. And my friends, always a text or phone call away who proved that there are people out there worth living for.

Because for when we are in love, the world is golden and nothing gets us down. But when that love falls apart, all that’s left is memories~ be it good or bad and the crutches you’ve got waiting by the wings in the form of friends and family. And you realize, you haven’t lost everything. Know that fact. Embrace it.  Everything happens for a reason. It is only up to you to decide what the reason is.

What are your abilities? And Yes,you have the potential :)

Just having started blogging, I guess I would have chosen a more introductory article to write. Its been awhile that I've given 'Potential' any thought and so the spontaneous post. I may not seem much like a person that thinks of what I could actually be reaaally good at. But in reality,the truth is I do. Not often, but I still do. 


 Being at the age where the line is getting thinner between adolescent and adulthood, its pretty tough to already decide where and who you want to be in life. Juggling between studies and fun because,well 16 isn't old enough for fussy bosses.


Standard graduation speeches are usually; don't give up on your dreams. I know this because not only is it on every graduation scene in a movie but also because I've done my research ;) Its kind of sad to think that throughout your whole life,you're bound to some sort of plan just like how when you step into school,hoping to learn something new,you're just as bound to the timetable set out,pinned in front of the class.And that routine goes on every week of the entire schooling years.
But in those speeches, what they really mean is, don't get demoralized.


Don't think that you can't do what other people can. And I agree you shouldn't underestimate your potential. People who've done great things tend to seem as if they were a millenium  apart. And most biographies only exaggerate this illusion, partly due to the worshipful attitude biographers constantly sink into, and partly because, knowing how the story ends, they can't help exaggerating and hiperbola-ing the plot till it seems like that person's  life was a matter of destiny, the mere unfolding of some crazy genius. Wow. In fact, I suspect if you had the sixteen year old Shakespeare or Einstein in school with you, they'd seem impressive, but not totally unlike your other friends,anyway.

Which is an uncomfortable thought. If they were just like us, then they had to work very hard to do what they did. And that's one reason we like to believe in geniuses. It gives us an excuse for being lazy. If these guys were able to do what they did only because of some magic Shakespeareness or Einsteinness, then it's not our fault if we can't do something as good. And yes, I am just as guilty as any struggling 'Pelajar Harapan' is.  Not like I'm a really clever kid in school but being in the competitive science stream does that. -.-

I'm not saying there's no such thing as geniuses. But if you're trying to choose between two theories and one gives you an excuse for being lazy, then the other one is probably right.

But I'm not satisfied.  It still needs to be cut  further. There is some variation in natural ability.  Most people overestimate its role, but it does exist.  If I were talking to a guy four feet tall or MY height whose ambition was to play in the National Basketball Association, I'd feel pretty stupid saying, you can do anything if you really try. 

I guess we need someone to cut the standard graduation speech to  "what someone else with your abilities can do, you can do; and don't underestimate your abilities."

Amelia Earhart~ The first female pilot. They said it would never happen.

But as so often happens, the closer you get to the truth, the messier your sentence gets. I've tried to take a nice, neat but wrong slogan, and churned it up like a chyme in your tummy. It doesn't make a very good speech anymore. But worse still, it doesn't tell you what to do anymore.  Someone with your abilities?  What are your abilities?